The Morning According to Us

NFL lifestyles might be all the stimulus this economy needs.

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"Derivatives are going to be the death of me. That and the jewel-encrusted blender."

The NFL, like every pro league, holds seminars for players on investing, the taxes they'll pay—all sorts of financial literacy courses. But that education seldom takes. (For example, the Panthers' Muhsin Muhammad listed his home yesterday on eBay.) But as the Redskins' Chris Cooley reasons, this cavalier lifestyle is no longer a bad thing. It just might be the stimulus package Obama needs.

It's time to do your patriotic duty, NFLers, and waste even more money!

Cooley uses his own ledger to make his argument. He says, because of his contract, he received $14 million in guaranteed bonus money, all of which was taxed at the highest income bracket in 2008. He was then taxed on his yearly salary, which he doesn't disclose, and which is tough to figure anyway because of the life of the contract, worth at most $16 million more over six years, most of it based on performance. Whatever he cleared, he says he paid in city, state, and federal taxes, "right at half my gross income for 2008." Giving half your income to Uncle Sam should be cause to spend wisely with the rest. But Cooley says that's not the case for him, or any NFL player he knows. "Cars, houses, clothes, food, women, jewelry and all of it at a rapid pace." Cooley says it's important to remember that he's not paid anywhere near the most on his team, either.

To read Cooley's argument, you have to suspend belief in the hard facts of bankruptcy, unemployment and divorce waiting for 78 percent of all players upon retirement. If you do that, this is a rather clever take on why NFL players should be paid more now, which is the point Cooley really wants to make. Should he be taken seriously? No, of course not.

Then again, when you consider the reality of deflation, and how even the Merrill Lynch bankers are now subpoenaed for taking home all that dough in 2008, some of "the rich" probably made way less than anybody can get angry over. Maybe it's time to think about where else new money might come from in this economy.

Elsewhere…

In Turkey, women are playing soccer, but that's still taboo to many.

In Pakistan, the hunt is on for cricket terrorists.

The San Francisco city hall gets taken to school by an old badminton player.

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